1) Th Vwls r _W_L
This game will start out as any generic choose-your-own adventure story but after the player makes their first choice the vowels will start disappearing. At this point the player has the choice to continue with the story or to look for the vowels. If the player chooses to continue with the story, gradually the other letters start to leave the story to look for their friends. Eventually the story will get so unreadable that it forces the player to finally look for the vowels, if the haven’t chosen to already. At this point, the choose-you-own-adventure becomes about figuring out where to find each of the vowels by learning the characteristics of each vowel.
I’m unsure currently of how this will end but I am more interesting in the puzzle aspect of the game than the ending itself so it may be somewhat anticlimactic. Also, I like the idea of the narrative being self-aware, i.e. knowing that it is missing the ability to provide the reader with the necessary information to continue the generic CYOA (i.e. legible words to describe what’s going on) and is forced to make it known that it is self-aware.
2) Lightbulb
For this idea, I am interesting in generating narrative from very simple actions. The player controls a lightbulb in a busy room in a house (living room, den, etc.) and has only two options at each choice point: turn on or turn off. The interesting part of this story will be observing as the lightbulb how such a simple action pushes the storyline forward (or backward0 in different ways. I think that I may want to add a third option that the lightbulb can choose like ‘dim’ to make the storyline more dynamic but am unsure at this point.
I know I want to do graphics for this idea but am still deciding what specifically. I like a few ideas which could be used independently or in combination: 1) using basic icons instead of words to indicate the choices (i.e. a lit up bulb), 2) drawing newly introduced characters from the vantage point of the lightbulb, and therefore warped in the way things would look as if looking through a fishbowl, 3) drawing some entire scenes through the vantage point of the lightbulb. Right now I think I’m leaning towards a combination of 1 and 2.
I also imagine that this one will have a lot of hypertext embedded in the narrative itself: since the entire story takes place in one room and the player is controlling a static object in the room, the player should have plenty of time to observe and explore as the narrative goes on.
I personally am more drawn to the first one because I find it humorous and it has a lot of potential. Have you given any thought to the content of the story itself? Is that relevant to what happens to the letters? I think this is worth considering.
I like the idea that the in-game character is aware that the letters are vanishing. I would like the narrative to reflect this, perhaps through a story about the character losing something – maybe a relationship, or their memories. I like this one more than the second.
For Lightbulb, I like having two options the best, as a third one will dilute the simplicity you are aiming for. It could be interesting if you didn’t use words at all in the narrative and told it solely using images.
I think that the Lightbulb will be much more dynamic in how your choice is simple but the outcome can/could be anything; I think it leaves a lot of work to you, but a continual interest in the audience. I like your 2nd idea for graphics, I’m not sure if the other two add much to the story.
In the Vowels game, it seems to be an exercise in futility, as your main goal is distracted and compromised by missing letters, which could be an interesting element. If finding the letters is pursued from the beginning, how does the game progress if they’re all found? Just slower? it may not yield compelling results
The second one I think would be more interesting if the narrative was made very well. I am not sure what kind of storyline would follow from the simple action though. The challenge I would have I guess is to not make the story dull because a story driven by a lightbulb could very easily turn out this way.
Th Vwls r _W_L
This idea is really inventive! But i’m lost in the implementation of it. How will you make this dynamic since we are using Twine? Will the letters be hiding in other links? Since vowels are the first to disappear, when you find a vowel how will you know what word it belongs to? does that matter?
What do you mean by characteristics of the letter?
Lightbulb
How does the story progress based on these simple actions? Since pushing the story with just two options will be more conceptually difficult than adding a variation, the story might come out more interesting as a result.
Based on your descriptions, I definitely agree that you should include illustrations. I think it’ll make your story that much more fun to interact with
I think the first one is personally more interesting as far as idea and I think you could get a lot of humor out of the whole ordeal but I would be careful with scope. I feel like this could easily get out of hand or could be too straightforward and as you said too anticlimactic. Figuring out the best balance would be ideal for you in creating this one.
The lightbulb one I think has potential to be really interesting or really boring. The lightbulb is stuck in one room and everyone else is moving in and out of the room so you only get snippets of what are happening to them and I think you can have a lot of fun with that idea. But I like the minimal control.
I like the idea of watching a story from the vantage point of a lightbulb, and the idea of graphics as you describe them sound interesting. I don’t know if this can be done in Twine, but it would be something to look into. A decent concern I have though, and maybe this is silly, but how do you keep the characters from simply turning on the lights if they are indoors? It seems like the natural thing for them to do if the light turns off.
The first idea is will be hard. What does is mean to look for vowels? If you are operating in a space where all words are practically unreadable, how can you even tell whether you are choosing to find vowels or not? I like the idea of one quest obscuring another, though I think it may be a bit too boring for the player to continue after they have found all the vowels again – your intended sense of purpose would be gone.
The second idea is interesting, and I like the idea of radically altering a story through the act of arbitrary removal of details. Don’t include “dim” – it’s essentially mood lighting, not as powerful as pure darkness or pure light.
I really like your first idea, although I wonder where the conclusion would be. I get that the ‘goal’ changes from being to complete the generic CYOA quest to finding all of the missing vowels, but after the vowels are found does the story just end? Do you go back to the CYOA? Can you finish the CYOA without the letters, just by luck? Depending on how you structure it the story could get very involved.
I think your second idea is interesting but it would have to be very very good if there were only two options. It would be little more than a linear story if your only options are on and off, with the reader simply controlling the pace of the story by flipping the switch. I think adding other options like ‘dim’ or ‘strobe’ could make the narrative more dynamic, because with only on and off as options you might as well just have a next button.
The first idea sounds epic! I’m curious to know why the vowels leave me.
For the second idea, if it’s in a room, it might be hard to design all the details that is affected by the light.